Are you living a ‘more than’ life?

 

It catches me off guard at times: I mention in passing I’m a writer and the listener asks, Oh! What do you write? That’s when a marmalade-striped kitty catches my tongue and a brief pause touches my lips. I’m working on a couple projects, I say. The next query follows: What kind… anything published? At this point I don’t know where to begin—no published novel, but yes, several magazine articles—and I start to act almost apologetic for ‘posing’ as a published author. Because while my peers within the writing community celebrate recent successful book launches, as well as sought-after literary awards, I still work toward the goal of writing more than: more than a to-do list or a grocery list, more than a blog or a commercial trade article. Yet, each time I communicate through words, I stack a building block one atop the other. And I’m happy because I can call myself a writer. Because I write.

What makes your life the ‘more than’ kind?

Image courtesy of Stoonn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Stop and smell the ocean breeze

[Image credit: Rawich]

Yesterday I had one of those days where I spent a little too much time pacing myself (i.e., looking for excuses).  My 15-minute breakfast after working out took almost an hour.  My chore time turned into chatting with friends and “playing” online.  I did get a good 40 minutes in at the gym, however, plus wrote out my grocery list and menu for the week, showered and wrote a little bit.  But if I plan to make more time to escape into my literary fantasy world, then I need to do less pacing and more crossing tasks off my list.  Or maybe I simply self-inflict too much in too little time and who cares if there’s cat fur all over the floor and that the dusting hasn’t been done for four days.  I’m definitely my own worst enemy.  Especially when I know that 20 or 30 years down the line I doubt I’ll be thinking: Wow, I’m so glad I kept up with all my chores.  Instead, what I like to believe you’ll hear me say is: I’m so thankful I followed my dreams, stopped to smell the ocean breeze and quit sweating the small stuff.  

Are you a work first, play later kind of person or just the opposite?

Word-of-the-month: peregrination (noun)

[Image credit: Master isolated images]

Since I started my word-of-the-month with March’s contribution (perspicacity), I’ve run across several words that have required me to look up their definitions.  I can’t say I will start using this new vocabulary in conversation or my writing on a regular basis, but the knowledge may come in handy sometime (for a guest appearance on Jeopardy, for instance, or maybe in a rousing game of Words With Friends).  With that said, my contribution for April is the word peregrination, which I stumbled upon in The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.  According to bing.com, peregrination is a literary term that means a journey or voyage.  Synonyms include: passage, traversing, crossing, trip, expedition, excursion, pilgrimage and safari.  Used in a sentence, it may read: The couple’s peregrination toward a future together included many obstacles to overcome.  As for me, the peregrination en route for my own Someday is filled with dips and detours — but mostly hope for smooth sailing ahead.

What does your life’s peregrination look like?